You can pick up 3 4 Gig Sandisk Extreme III SD or CF cards for nuthin’. Well, almost nothing. You do have to pay for them and mail in a rebate form so you’ll pay a little for shipping and a stamp.

With today’s high MP cameras and video enabled DSLR’s (thanks Nikon) having a ton of memory space is essential. Go grab your deal now as it’s only for 4 days (offer ends Sunday 11/30)

In the past week I’ve seen announcements for 16 Gig Sony PRO Duo sticks, 12 Gig microSD cards for your phone, 8 Gig SDHC cards, and the big winner from Pretec: a 48 Gig CompactFlash card. (That’s bigger that the C: drive in my last computer!)

For those of you with 12 MP and greater cameras, these cards are just right for you. They’ll give you lots of space for RAW files for your next photo shoot.

I urge the P&S crowd to not go for these huge cards. Something in the 2 Gig size should be your maximum. Why you say?

• Shooting JPG files, you could get a years worth of photos on 8 Gig. You need to download images after each shoot.
• A full 8 or 12 Gig card will take an afternoon to download (ok, maybe less but you get the point)
• If you have a card error and lose all your pics you’ll hate yourself.
• Think about it. When is the last time you needed to shoot 2000 photos in an outing?

Shoot and download. Shoot and download. Shoot and download.
You’ll have fewer lost images and less headaches.

Many digital photographers use card readers for downloading their images. I’ve been using one for years. Using a memory card reader instead of going through the camera gives you a number of advantages.

• Data transfer is usually faster
• Downloading from multiple memory cards is quicker and easier. With many cameras you’ll have to turn them off and back on to recognize the next card.
• The card reader can stay attached to your computer (or may be built in already). No searching for your camera’s USB cable.
• Since the card reader acts as another drive, you can copy files through the operating system software. No special software is really needed.
• Plug your USB card reader into ANY computer and transfer images. Great when traveling.

The average USB memory card reader will cost about $20 or so. Watch out for cheap ones; they transfer data using USB 1.1 and not USB 2.0 standards. They’ll be much slower getting your images to your computer. Most every computer now has multiple USB 2.0 compatible ports. Check the specs on your system if you’re not sure.

You will also find card readers that handle multiple card styles. Lexar and Sandisk both have good high speed multi-card readers. If you have digital cameras using different memory cards this is the perfect choice for you.

The first thing to do is stop crying. There’s still hope. All you need is your trusty USB card reader and some software. If you bought a Sandisk Ultra or a Lexar WA card you’re all set. These both come with image recovery software. And they both work really well.

Fortunately, there’s another data recovery software available (for free). I’ve used it a number of times with great success. It’s called PC Inspector™ Smart Recovery and is produced by a German company. Using this software you can most likely save that corrupt card full of images.

Although it’s fairly rare for a card to go bad, there are things you can do to mess up your memory card. Keep it clean and dry. And don’t turn the camera off too quickly after shooting pics. Most cameras will finish a card write before powering off, but some won’t.

Hopefully, you won’t experience this kind of panic. If you do just remember that there are ways to get back lost images. This software also works on deleted files and (sometimes) on accidentally Formatted memory cards.

** MAC Photo Recovery Software is available for the Apple clan for $39.